Forever (80 page)

Her eyes filled with tears. 'How can I help
it. Elevating their victims to a kind of pseudo-religious sainthood
and keeping them on file! It'ssicA:!'

He didn't reply, just kept pressing her
flesh, letting her know he shared her feelings.

'You know something?' she said softly, if
I'd known from the start what I was going to find . . .' She stared
at him, eyes wide with confusion, and gave a kind of shrug. 'I
really don't know if I'd

have kept at it.'

'Bullshit.' He shook his head adamantly. 'I
know you. You'd have been that much more rabid about chasing this
down, that's all.'

A weary little smile pushed through her
face. 'How well you know me, Johnny,' she said. 'You think maybe
that's why we're always at each other's throats? Because we know
each other so well?' She tilted her head forward and looked down.
'I don't know why, but sometimes, the ones we love the most are the
ones we end up hurting the worst.'

He perked up. 'Hey, this your way of saying
you love me?'

'Oh, Johnny!' She tried to push him
away.

But he had her smiling again and she made a
kissing motion with her mouth and suddenly the world was all right
by him.

It was a moment before either of them
realised the screen had switched to read: DECEASED CRY-ORPH
PERSONS.

'Damn! You do know how to distract a woman!'
Stephanie quickly withdrew her hand from his and asked the computer
for more information.

And almost instantly, a luminescent blur of
vile green letters raced up the screen with impossible speed. When
they stilled, it was three-quarters of the way into the J's:

DECEASED CRY-ORPH PERSONS FILED BY
ALPHABETICAL PARENTAL SURNAMES

PARENTOFFSPRINGDODCAUSE

JONDREAU,FRAN£OISE SIMONE5/17/76H2

& ERIC

JONE,GLEN & JACKIEHOMER2/22/90C2

JONES,DENNIS & MARIA ALVIN1/09/54H3

JONES,DEN YCERAYMOND5/13/70R1

JONES, VINETTEJOWANDA8/23/91AO

JONES,WILMAIDA10/03/70B3

JONG,LEEHELEN3/14/68SI

Johnny got up from his crouch and leaned
over the tabletop. Running his finger down the CAUSE column, he
said, 'What the hell do these codes stand for?'

'Why don't we ask the computer?' Stephanie
suggested, and typed in the appropriate question.

ABBREVIATIONS OF CAUSES OF DEATH

AOALLERGIC REACTION

A1ANEURYSM

B1BACTERIAL INFECTION

B2BLOOD CLOT

B3BOTULISM

B4BRAIN TUMOUR

CICANDIDIASIS

C2CARCINOMA

(CON'T)

'Hm,' Stephanie said thoughtfully.
'Jowanda's official cause of death is listed as AO. Allergic
reaction.' She glanced at Johnny. 'Not that I believe it for an
instant.'

'Neither do I.' He frowned. 'So where do we
go from here?'

'Well, how about we take a look-see at the
chronological listing of deceased CRY-ORPH persons? Like, right
around the time Jowanda died?' She raised her eyebrows
questioningly. 'We might learn something.'

'You're on a roll. I say go for it.'

She hit the CLEAR button, then typed in
several commands.

Finally, there was that burst of blurring,
scrambled letters unrolling faster than the eye could see. Then
abruptly they stilled, and there it was:

DECEASED CRY-ORPH PERSONS FILED
CHRONOLOGICALLY BY DATE OF DEATH

DODCRY-ORPH PERSONAGECAUSE

8/18/91Golubnichy, Marina06E3

8/19/91Lindblom, William2.3D1

8/20/91Balas, Milhaela2.4D2

8/21/91Koen, Nelly1.8D2

8/22/91Pomomareva, Faina3.1LI

► 8/23/91Jones, Jowanda07AO

8/24/91Rica, Ulrike09D2

8/25/91Capilla, Juan2.6R4

8/26/91Cooper, Brian2.1P2

(CON'T)

'Do you see what I see?' Johnny asked as he
scanned the column of dates.

'Be hard to miss.' Stephanie nodded. 'One a
day.' 'Yeah. They pop 'em like vitamins.' Johnny replied.

'But there's something else. Those names.
The kids are from all over the world.'

'Yes, and I'd say that's one of the beauties
of this setup. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't CRY sponsor
villages and have orphanages or health clinics in sixty or seventy
countries?'

'Everywhere from Angola to Zimbabwe,
yes.'

'So don't you see? As long as not too many
kids die from any one place at any one time, who's going to suspect
anything?'

'Us,' she said solemnly.

'That's right,' he agreed, 'but we stumbled
across it by accident.'

She frowned thoughtfully, if we want to shut
this operation down for good we're going to need hard evidence.'
For a moment, she drummed her fingernails on the tabletop screen,
away from the televised keyboard. 'Johnny . . .?' she said
slowly.

'What?'

'I don't see a printer around here. Do you
think the computer's sophisticated enough to tell us how to get a
printout of all this?'

'Why don't you ask it?

Stephanie poised her hands above the
keyboard and typed:

HOW DO I GET A PRINTOUT OF OUR
TRANSACTIONS?

There was a blink, the screen went blank,
and the reply came slowly, as if laboriously hunt-and-pecked:

GOOD TRY, BUT YOU DON'T, MS MERLIN.

YOU AND YOUR FRIEND ARE COMPLETELY
SURROUNDED. THERE IS NO ESCAPE ADVISE YOU DON'T TRY ANY TRICKS OR
MAKE SUDDEN MOVES

Stephanie felt the skin on the back of her
neck start to crawl. Very slowly, she turned and looked to her
right, to the top of the curving stairs.

She caught her breath. Six armed guards each
had an automatic weapon pointed at her and Johnny.

'Johnny,' she murmured, 'I think we're in
deep shit.'

'Stephanie, love,' he murmured back, i think
you are correct.'

TWENTY-ONE

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil • Sitto da Veiga •
llha da Borboleta

That evening, when he got home from Sao
Paulo, the first thing Eduardo did was place another call to Sftto
da Veiga. Monica's number rang and rang. Finally, he had an
operator check to see if there was trouble on the line.

There wasn't.

After he hung up, he loosened his tie,
poured himself a generous snifter of Napoleon brandy, and went out
onto the cantilevered deck overlooking his rooftop pool.

He gulped down his brandy and went inside
and poured himself another hefty splash. She's immersed in work, he
reasoned, going back outside. Or she's discovering all the marvels
in that Disney World of technological wonders. In many ways, he
knew, Sftto da Veiga was like a sophisticated amusement park for
first-time visitors.

Then he laughed softly to himself. What am I
worried about, anyway? If anyone can take care of herself, it's
Monica Williams.

I'll try her again first thing in the
morning, he decided, If I still can't get hold of her then, I'll
fly straight out there and pay her a surprise visit.

Having come to that decision, he went to
bed, secure in the knowledge that no harm could come to his
girl-friend.

Before they left Sftto da Veiga, Colonel
Valerio sent a man to Stephanie and Johnny's quarters to fetch
appropriate travel

clothes for each of them. The man returned
with slacks and a dark sweater and tennis shoes for Stephanie;
jeans and a sweatshirt and sneakers for Johnny.

At least we get to change out of these damn
scrub clothes, Stephanie thought, while changing under the leering
gaze of a guard. That's the one silver lining to this cloud.

Ten minutes later, their hands cuffed behind
their backs, Stephanie Merlin and Johnny Stone were in the
glass-topped bus, bound for the airstrip.

Five passengers boarded the Learjet for the
return flight to Vitoria. Stephanie and Johnny, Colonel Valerio,
and two of his men.

Stephanie and Johnny were seated apart.
Neither was permitted to speak, but Stephanie found it difficult to
hold her tongue. 'Eduardo will make you pay for this!' she spat,
raking Colonel Valerio with a lethal glare. 'I wouldn't be so
sure,' he told her with a serene smile. Two hours later, when the
jet landed at Vitoria, the five of them switched aircraft and
boarded a waiting helicopter.

This helicopter flight to Ilha da Borboleta
was vastly different from the one last week, when Stephanie had
been with Eduardo. Then, she had come to the island as his willing
guest. Now, she was returning against her will as Colonel Valerio's
prisoner. The helicopter even put down at a different location -
the lit helipad at the security compound, on the far side of the
island from the q uinta.

Stephanie, Johnny, and Colonel Valerio were
the only ones to get off. The two guards stayed on board, and at a
signal from Colonel Valerio, the helicopter instantly lifted off
again, was briefly silhouetted against the three-quarter moon, and
then disappeared into the night.

With its departure, the silence was
unearthly. Except for the shrill of insects and the sounds of
distant surf, the island seemed strangely quiet, eerily
desolate.

'I demand to call Eduardo,' Stephanie said
stubbornly.

'Then you'd better call at the top of your
lungs,' Colonel Valerio advised her grimly. 'This entire island has
been evacuated, and all lines of communication have been cut. The
three of us are alone here.'

Before she could register her disbelief,
Colonel Valerio grabbed her with one hand and Johnny with the other
and force-marched them towards the dimly-lit security building.

'I'm putting you in separate cells tonight,'
he told them. 'And if I were you, I'd try to get a good night's
sleep. You're going to need your strength tomorrow.'

Johnny refused to give him the pleasure of
asking why, and for once, even Stephanie was silent. Something told
her she'd find out soon enough.

Perhaps too soon.

When Colonel Valerio had helped design the
security complex, he had anticipated every contingency, right down
to the potential necessity for a jail. Subsequently, two
escape-proof cells had been built in the steamy, bug-infested
basement of the barracks, at opposite ends of the building.
Prisoners would be unable to communicate even by shouting.

Now Colonel Valerio shoved Stephanie and
Johnny ahead of him, down a dark flight of narrow concrete stairs
to the first cell. He unlocked Johnny's handcuffs and shoved him
inside and slam-locked the door.

Johnny leapt at it in a last-ditch effort,
but it was too late. The lock had clicked. With a cry of rage, he
tried to reach his captor through the bars, but Colonel Valerio was
out of reach and laughed softly. Ignoring Johnny's yells, he pushed
Stephanie along a narrow, musty basement corridor to the other end
of the building.

As he unlocked her cuffs, she surprised him
by saying, 'There's no need to push and shove, you know.' And she
entered the cell with all the dignity of a queen.

The barred door slammed shut behind her.

'Don't let the snakes and spiders bite,' he
taunted, and it was then that Stephanie saw the madness blazing out
of his eyes. Why didn 't I see it sooner? she wondered. Why hasn 't
anybody?

And then she knew. She had never seen him
without his mirrored aviator shades before.

Johnny was steaming. Prowling the confines
of his cell like a caged tiger.

I'm going to kill that son of a bitch! he
promised himself. He'll be sorry he ever fucked with Steph or
me!

'You hear me, you bastard?' he yelled. 'I'm
going to killyouV

'Kill you . . . 'Kill you

The only response he got was the echo of his
own voice.

Stephanie sat quietly on the cot, drawing
from deep reserves of strength she didn't even know she had in
her.

Despite everything that had happened over
the past few months, she still believed in happy endings. Eduardo
will come and release us, she thought confidently. He has to.

'I know he will,' she repeated aloud. 'I
know he will.'

It was a prayer, an entreaty, a mantra.

Colonel Valerio was feeling good. He was
high with anticipation of the day to come, and he prepared for it
by spending hours oiling and cleaning and fine-tuning his field
gear.

He checked the string-to-cable connections
of his Pearson Spoiler Cam bow and adjusted the flight wheel. He
screwed on a Cobra VA-250 bow sight and the Arrow-Max overdrive
unit with its spring-wire arrow rest and Teflon sleeve.

He carefully selected fifteen arrows - five
of graphite, each two-and-a-half times stiffer than aluminium, and
nearly twice as strong and deadly; five of compression-moulded
graphite and fibreglass; and five lightweight shafts of a graphite
and fibreglass laminate.

He chose his arrowheads and screwed them
into the shafts. He'd selected evenly between conical broadheads,
which were shaped like smooth bullets, but whose four 1'/4-inch
blades opened on impact; octagonal-bladed l-and-'/s-inch steel
knifepoint broadheads; and heavy-duty, moose-killing 140-grain
chisel tips. He spent an additional hour lovingly sharpening and
resharpening each blade until he could have shaved with it.

Finally satisfied, he packed a selection of
arrows in the Hoyt quiver which he attached to his bow, and stored
the others in a special hip quiver of his own design.

Next he sharpened his hunting knife, chose
his most comfortable pair of jungle boots, and checked the spikes
he could strap onto the boots, as well as the military spec
climbing belt: utilising these, he could climb high and safe up any
tree.

Now what to wear . . .

He went through his wall locker, and chose
the camouflage pattern which he knew would make him almost
invisible in this jungle environment - grey and black Trebark of
highly

contrasting, ragged triangles. Having
decided that, he laid out matching camouflage shooting gloves and
arm guards.

Finally, he packed a camouflage fanny pack
with an extra pair of socks, dried beef jerky strips, candy bars, a
spray can of Cutter's insect repellent, tubes of camouflage grease,
and a box of matches in a waterproof case.